~ covering government and politics in Missouri – since 2007

Bill Clinton in Springfield, Missouri – March 11, 2016

Yesterday President Bill Clinton spoke on behalf of Hillary Clinton at a noon event in Kansas City and an afternoon event in Springfield. The Springfield event took place at the Teamsters Local 245 hall. The venue was packed.

Bill Clinton in Springfield, Missouri – March 11, 2016.

At the back of the hall.

President Bill Clinton:….I’m glad to be back in the Ozarks. A lot of you know that, that, a, Hillary and I were married in Fayetteville and that we taught in the law school there and I felt right at home when I saw the Democrats and the protesters out there together. [laughter]….

….One of the things I like about being a Democrat in this election season is at least our side is debating the issues. [cheers, applause]. Both of our candidates agree that income inequality is way too great and we need to do something about it. And both agree that we need to get affordable health care for everybody. And both agree that everybody ought to be able to go to college and get out without debt. They have differences about how to do it. And some differences about how the economy works and how best to maintain it. And they’re very important. But at least it’s real. You can listen to this debate and figure out who you agree with….

….It’s are very well to blame somebody for the fix we’re in….but I can tell you this, I’ve had that job. You take the oath of office and whatever blaming you did in the campaign, it lasts about fifteen seconds, then you gotta stand and deliver. You own it. And when you quit people are either better off than they were when you started or they’re not. Children and young people have brighter future, or not. We’re coming together or still being torn apart, or not….

….If you want shared prosperity and everybody rising again, if you want a society where we’re coming together again we have to have a politics for the president who will, number one, stand her grand where it’s important, and number two, never ever, ever close the door to finding common ground. Now there’s a big difference of opinion about this….And you have to decide who you agree with. But I like her campaign. I like the fact that she holds it up to here’s how we can get more and better jobs, here’s how we can live together, and here’s how I’m gonna pay for it, don’t forget arithmetic.[laughter] People ask me all the time, how’d we create all those jobs and have three balanced budgets and surpluses? What great new idea did you bring to Washington? And I always say, arithmetic. [laughter, applause]. But, look, there’s so much anxiety here in spite of the fact that we had fourteen million jobs in five years, we’re growing faster than any other big country [inaudible], that’s the largest job growth we’ve had since that other Democrat, whatever his name was, was president. [laughter]. [inaudible] For the first time in our history as a nation we have over ninety percent of our people with health insurance. And [applause, cheers] … and we’re in better condition for the future because we’ve got a younger, more diverse workforce, because we rank first or second in the world according to all scientific surveys and our crowd still believes in science. [applause, laughter] And the ability to generate electricity from the sun and the wind, three of our states, Minnesota, Iowa, and Texas, already get more than a third of their electricity from wind. Iowa has the cheapest power costs in the United States….

….So, basically we got all this anxiety because most people still haven’t gotten a raise. ‘Cause you got all these young people who can’t move out of their parents’ house, ‘cause they can’t pay rent and pay their college debt. Because too many of the jobs that have been created pay lower than average wages. And what we’ve got to do is rise together again. And what I want to say first of all that we are in a position to rise together again because the jobs are coming back, because were outperforming the rest of the world. But it won’t happen by accident. We’ve gotta build ladders of opportunity and tear down barriers that keep everybody from climbing the ladders. [applause] Hillary is running for president because she wants us to all rise together. [applause, cheers]….

[….]

So, we are in a race. And I need your help and Hillary needs your help. And this is the last thing I want to say. I want you to vote for her…It’d be a good thing to have someone on day one that understood the national security issues as well as the domestic issues. [applause] Most importantly, is that she’s the best change maker that I ever met. And you want somebody that actually gets something done. Let me, she graduated from law school. She could have gone into any law firm, she went to work for the Children’s Defense Fund. She went to South Carolina to see why African-American teenagers were being jailed with adults for years and having their lives ruined. And they had juvenile justice reform because of the work she and the Children’s Defense Fund did. She went to Alabama where there were desegregated academies pretending to be eligible for federal tax credits. Which they weren’t. She posed as a housewife that just moved to town trying to find a school for her son. And they had all this little polite conversation. She looked at this guy, said, look, just give me a straight answer. [inaudible] Is my She came to Arkansas with me and in the Ozarks established our first ever legal aid clinic. And poor people in the mountains got access to the justice system for the first time. [applause] She started…a preschool program in the mountain and in the Mississippi delta ‘cause we had six of the poorest counties in America. You had all these people starting school, there was no preschool back then, there was no kindergarten, and she said, Bill, these kids don’t have a chance. Their parents can’t read, write, and count….

….Go out and talk to your friends and neighbors, bring home the vote. We need you. We need you. And she will be there for you. For places like Springfield and all the counties in between the cities as well as the people who live in the cities. We can all rise together….

Sometimes television reporting is like a selfie, except with more expensive equipment:

A television reporter doing a standup in front of the main press riser while Bill Clinton is speaking.

On the rope line.

There was a handful of protesters outside the event. They need to work on their graphic design skills.

Protesters on the street outside the campaign rally. The individual in the background is holding a sign “Hitlary for Prison 2016″.” The flyer in the back pocket of the individual leaning over – “Is it a Rising or Setting Sun over America?”